Film & TV News Archive

The cast and crew of Zombie Diaries

All good things must come to an end and FrightFest is no exception. The last day was a mixed bag that gave us one of the best films of the festival and also the most disappointing.

Arriving too late to join in the mass zombie walk I found Leicester Square overrun with zombies, including junior members of the walking dead (see pic left). Fighting my way through the flesh hungry hoard I made my way to my seat for the day’s first film, Zombie Diaries.

Making allowances for the films obvious micro budget, this was a nice blend of Night of the Living Dead and The Blair Witch Project. The acting was variable and elements of the films structure could have been better (the final scene with the army weakened the ending) but this showed promise and an abundance of enthusiasm from all concerned.

During the Q&A that followed the directors were asked the budget of the film. Michael Bartlett rather than name the figure responded with “What was the budget? It almost cost me my marriage. It almost cost me my home.” Co-director Kevin Gates added two girlfriends to the tally. Clearly these guys were passionate about their film.

Talking to Bartlett after the screening he asked me about The Signal and All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, two films he’d wanted to see. Horror it seems wasn’t just a genre he picked because it could be done cheaply but something he had a real interest in.

The second of BC Magazine’s monthly horror series Cinema Macabre has been published. Among the ghoulish delights this month are -

Chris Beaumont on the pleasures of nunsploitation and Satanico Pandemonium.

Iloz Zoc takes a look at the Japanese classic The H-Man with its radioactive jelly-men.

Daniel Woolstencroft pays tribute to the late Bob Clark and the classic Deathdream.

And me? I look back at the first and best screen version of John Wyndam’s The Midwich Cuckoos – Village of the Damned staring the incomparable George Sanders.

Cinema Macabre is published on the last Friday of the month.

Over the past week I’ve written three articles for BC Magazine to commemorate the centenary of Katherine Hepburn’s birth on May 12. Katharine Hepburn Centenary: The First Lady of Cinema takes a brief look at some of the high points of the actresses long career and you’ll also find reviews of The African Queen and Rooster Cogburn.

BC Magazine will also be featuring similar articles to commemorate the births of Laurence Olivier (May 20) and John Wayne (May 26) over the next couple of weeks.

Over at BC Magazine some of the film writers have selected their favourite horror flicks for a new monthly feature called Cinema Macabre.  As a taster this is my entry -

Race With The Devil (1975)

Peter Fonda and Warren Oates join forces again for this tale of the holiday from hell. The pair first worked together on the elegiac western The Hired Hand and enjoyed the experience so much they jumped at the chance to make this film, about two married couples whose journey to Colorado in an RV is interrupted by a group of backwoods Satan worshippers after the holidaymakers witness a human sacrifice.

The two stars’ real life friendship allows them to bring a natural camaraderie to their characters and they’re aided by a pair of seasoned TV actresses as their wives. Loretta Swit gets some R&R from playing “Hot Lips” in M*A*S*H as Warren’s better half, while Lara Parker, of supernatural soap Dark Shadows fame, shines as Fonda’s onscreen spouse. Also making a welcome appearance is Peckinpah regular R.G. Armstrong as a local sheriff who may know a little more than he lets on.

Master low budget director Jack Starrett makes sure everything moves at a cracking pace yet still leaves room for some Invasion of the Body Snatchers-style paranoia as Lara Parker becomes convinced that everyone they encounter is a member of the cult. Add to that some expertly crafted scares (most notably the rattlesnake scene) and an action-packed final twenty minutes that has the beleaguered campers fending off attacks from all sides while trying to stay on the road and you’ve got the perfect action/horror movie.

A new James Bond is always something to get excited about but with Daniel Craig in the part I was much less excited than normal. I’d seen Craig in Tomb Raider, Road to Perdition and his starring role in Layer Cake and was extremely under whelmed. For me he had the same problem as another actor whose name was bandied about for the part – Clive Owen, said problem being a severe lack of personality. Both men seemed to have had charisma bypass surgery. This had the making of another On Her Majesty’s secret Service i.e. a perfectly good Bond film ruined by the man playing 007.

I wasn’t completely without hope though. Martin Campbell was the man calling the shots behind the camera and he’d got Mr Brosnan off to a great start with Goldeneye. At the very least the film promised some good action scenes…

It’s clear right from the start that this isn’t a Bond film, at least not the kind of Bond film we’ve grown used to over the last 40 odd years. Filmed in black and white, the pre credits sequence shows how Bond got his 00 rating. He’s a cold emotionless killer and he’s not afraid to get his hands bloody to get the job done. We’ve seen James kill before but never like this.

The Marvel Comics superhero Moon Knight is coming to television. The character has been around since the ’70s and is currently experiencing an upsurge in popularity thanks to the top creative team working on the book. Acclaimed novelist Charlie Huston is the writer of the ongoing comic with fan favourite David Finch handling the art.

No doubt attracted by the popularity of the comic, production company No Equal Entertainment has made a deal with Marvel Studios to produce an ongoing series. As the ink is still wet on the agreement, no cast or production personnel have been decided yet.

Moon Knight is a hero in a similar vein to DC Comics’ Batman; he spends the night hours looking for evildoers and bringing them to justice. His secret identity is Marc Spector, an ex-mercenary forever changed by an encounter with the Egyptian god Konshu. Unlike Batman there is often a supernatural nature to his foes.

Television seems an ideal home for comic heroes, with the ongoing storylines more easily translated to a weekly TV format than a two hour motion picture. If this venture is successful it could lead to more of Marvel’s less well known heroes making the transition.

Hopefully the TV show will keep the dark and macabre atmosphere that has been a constant throughout the characters existence, never more so than in the current incarnation.

In an unprecedented move, Marvel Comics has teamed up with Procter & Gamble Productions – the producers of long running daytime soap opera Guiding Light – in an attempt to attract new readers to the comics and new viewers to the show.

A new superhero is introduced on the Guiding Light episode airing November 1, 2006. This new costumed vigilante, along with other characters from the soap, made their first comic appearance in Civil War: Choosing Sides and will appear as a backup story in a further twelve titles.

This isn’t the first time the show has had a Marvel connection. A few months back, the series’ costume designer Shawn Dudley created the X-Men‘s Storm’s wedding dress for an issue of the monthly comic, Black Panther.

While there has always been a soap opera nature to many comics, one has to question the logic of associating some of Marvel’s most famous creations (Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, and Wolverine all interact with the residents of Springfield in the comic) with probably the lowest form of American TV drama.

With Spider-Man and Wolverine already having made several highly successful movie appearances and Iron Man coming sometime next year, can this venture really reach a potential audience who would otherwise be unaware of them? Is Marvel trying to attract the housewives of America to comics? And will comic readers really be interested in the goings on of the little community of Springfield? I personally have my doubts.

So how have the big summer blockbusters performed this year? Let’s take a look shall we?

First out of the gate was Mission Impossible III, and with a sub $50 million opening this was widely condemned as a major disappointment. But how do things look now its theatrical business is more or less complete? Surprisingly good I think. While it only managed $133m in the US, its takings for the rest of the world are almost double that ($247m) giving it a worldwide gross of almost $381m. With a budget of £150m (small compared to some of the summers other big films) that’s not a bad return at all and I think at some point we’ll see Mission Impossible IV.

Poseidon opened next and must rank as the major flop of the summer. Budgeted at $160m Wolfgang Petersen’s remake only managed $60m in America and, while it did better overseas ($114m) is still a big disappointment. After Troy and now this I wouldn’t expect to see Petersen given this kind of money to play with again any time soon, so don’t hold your breath for his adaptation of the Ender’s Game SF novel.